Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production
Speaker 1: of My Heart Radio and Unboss Creative. I'm Bridget Todd,
Speaker 1: and this is there Are No Girls on the Internet.
Speaker 1: So here in the United States, we're on day four
Speaker 1: of hearings around the deadly January six insurrection, where Trump
Speaker 1: supporters stormed the Capitol believing Trump's repeated lies that presidential
Speaker 1: election had been stolen from him and that he was
Speaker 1: the actual winner. I obviously don't feel like I need
Speaker 1: to tell you that that was complete bullshit, and it
Speaker 1: really goes to show the power and danger that can
Speaker 1: happen when lies and disinformation are weaponized. People died. Now
Speaker 1: in that hearing, we heard the testimony of Ruby and
Speaker 1: sha Freeman, and it really broke me. And I think
Speaker 1: it's important for everyone to hear in their own words
Speaker 1: how their livelihoods and safety were jeopardized by racist, sexist lies. So,
Speaker 1: if you don't know, sixty two year old Ruby and
Speaker 1: her daughter, Shae Freeman were both election workers in Fulton County, Georgia,
Speaker 1: a state were Trump legitimately lost, and where he would
Speaker 1: go on to pressure Georgia's Secretary of State to quote
Speaker 1: fine votes for him in an attempt to cast doubt
Speaker 1: on the election, Trump and his henchmen Rudy Giuliani repeatedly
Speaker 1: named Ruby and Shay, both of whom are black women,
Speaker 1: as specific election workers who were rigging the election in
Speaker 1: favor of Biden. Now, this was an outright lie based
Speaker 1: on nothing, and it basically destroyed their lives. Trump and
Speaker 1: his allies obtained video of the women and baselessly lied
Speaker 1: about those videos, saying they showed evidence of the women
Speaker 1: vote hampering. In one video, Trump and Giuliani claimed the
Speaker 1: women carried suitcases with as many as eighteen thousand ballots,
Speaker 1: all for Joe Biden. Complete bullshit. There aren't even suitcases
Speaker 1: in the video. They were just the normal boxes that
Speaker 1: ballots are kept and moved in. Trump also said that
Speaker 1: video of the women counting vote that the state farm
Speaker 1: arena showed the fraudulent processing of ballots, Also bullshit. State
Speaker 1: officials repeatedly cleared the women and all election workers of
Speaker 1: any mishandling of votes. Complete nonsense. But none of this
Speaker 1: stopped Trump and his croonies from putting these women in
Speaker 1: real danger by repeatedly lying about it. And we need
Speaker 1: to be really open about the ways that they specifically
Speaker 1: used racism and misogyny to fuel this attack. I don't
Speaker 1: think these lies would have worked in the same way
Speaker 1: had Ruby and her daughter not been Black women, who
Speaker 1: we know are disproportionately harmed by disinformation and online harassment.
Speaker 1: Just listen to what Giuliani said about the women and
Speaker 1: tell me it is not a racist line of attack.
Speaker 1: Take earlier in the day of Ruby Freeman and Shae Freeman,
Speaker 1: Mars and one other gentleman quite obviously surreptitiously passing around
Speaker 1: USB ports. It's just they are vials and heroin or cocing.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's ours. It's obvious to anyone who's a
Speaker 1: criminal investigator or prosecutor. They're engaged in surreptitious the illegal activity.
Speaker 1: Again that day and after a week ago, and they're
Speaker 1: still walking around Georgia. Why should have been it should
Speaker 1: have been uh sho'd been questioned already, h there are
Speaker 1: places of work, their homes should have be searched for
Speaker 1: evidence of balance, evidence of USB ports, for evidence of
Speaker 1: voter fraud. So Giuliani accuses the women of passing votes
Speaker 1: on a USB drive back and forth, which already like
Speaker 1: what but in reality, what was your mom actually handing
Speaker 1: you on that video that ginger man. Trump also accused
Speaker 1: the women of vote tampering, basically attacking them by first
Speaker 1: and last name. We had at least eighteen thousand, that's
Speaker 1: on paid. We had him counted very mistakingly eighteen thousand
Speaker 1: voters having to do with the rumy Freeman. That's she's
Speaker 1: a vote scammer, a professional vote scammer and hustler. Okay,
Speaker 1: so here's what I think people are not saying clear enough.
Speaker 1: I think that Trump and Giuliani just saw video of
Speaker 1: two black women in Georgia and knew that they could
Speaker 1: say that those black women were the culprits, that those
Speaker 1: black women were liars, and those black women were the
Speaker 1: reason that Trump lost the election, the same way that
Speaker 1: Trump has repeatedly attacked black women like White House correspondent
Speaker 1: April Ryan. I think that he knew that his base
Speaker 1: would be poised and ready to believe it because they
Speaker 1: have a visceral hate and distrust and disdain for black women,
Speaker 1: and that they would be ready to believe that the
Speaker 1: visual of black women working at a Georgia polling place
Speaker 1: would be proof to convince them that something shady was
Speaker 1: going on, They basically just said to their racist supporters, hey,
Speaker 1: look at this video. It shows that black women were
Speaker 1: involved in the vote counting process in Georgia, and that
Speaker 1: should be evident enough that the election was rigged. His
Speaker 1: attacks really weaponized their identities against them and relies on
Speaker 1: tropes about black women being untrustworthy, which we see time
Speaker 1: and time again with disinformation and online harassment. This led
Speaker 1: to a flood of racist death threats and harassment against
Speaker 1: Ruby and Shay, at first, mostly centralized around Facebook Messenger.
Speaker 1: Here's Shay's testimony. So I'm just asked him, like, where
Speaker 1: are the messages? All I see is the fees, Like
Speaker 1: how do you get to the messages? And he said,
Speaker 1: it's another icon on your phone that says messenger. And
Speaker 1: I went to that icon and it was just a
Speaker 1: lot of horrible things there, and those horrible things that
Speaker 1: they include threats, yes, a lot of threats, um wishing
Speaker 1: death upon me, um telling me that you know, I'm
Speaker 1: I'll be in jail with my mother, and saying things
Speaker 1: like be glad it's not nineteen twenty. So obviously saying
Speaker 1: you'll be glad it's not nineteen twenty. It's a reference
Speaker 1: to her being lynched and killed, which is just disgusting,
Speaker 1: and she's testimony about how she felt is really heartbreaking.
Speaker 1: I felt horrible. I felt like it was all my all,
Speaker 1: Like if I would have never decided to be an
Speaker 1: elections worker, like I could have on anything else, but
Speaker 1: that's what I decided to do. And now people are
Speaker 1: lying and spreading rumors and lies and attacking my mom.
Speaker 1: I'm her only child, going to my grandmother's house, her
Speaker 1: only grandchild, and and my kid. It's just um, I
Speaker 1: felt so bad. I just felt bad for my mom,
Speaker 1: and I felt horrible for picking this job and being
Speaker 1: the one that always wants to help and always there,
Speaker 1: never missing out one election. I just felt like it
Speaker 1: was it was my fault for putting my family in
Speaker 1: this situation. She's mom Ruby describes how she was always
Speaker 1: so proud of her nickname Lady Ruby, and how was
Speaker 1: a business owner and community staple in Georgia. Everybody knew
Speaker 1: her as Lady Ruby. She even had a staple shirt
Speaker 1: with Lady Ruby bedazzled on it that she wore all
Speaker 1: the time. But because of Trump and his camp lies,
Speaker 1: she no longer even uses her name because it doesn't
Speaker 1: feel safe she's actually hasn't earned that shirt. Since now,
Speaker 1: I won't even introduce my self by my name anymore.
Speaker 1: I get nervous when I bump into someone I know
Speaker 1: in the grocery store who says my name. I'm heard
Speaker 1: about who's listening. I get nervous when I have to
Speaker 1: give my name for food orders. I'm always concerned of
Speaker 1: who's around me. I've lost my name and I've lost
Speaker 1: my reputation. I've lost my sense of security, all because
Speaker 1: a group of people, starting with number forty five and
Speaker 1: his ally, Rudy Giuliani, decided to scapegoat me and my
Speaker 1: door to shape to push their own lives about how
Speaker 1: the presidential election was stolen. Shay and Ruby, once pillars
Speaker 1: of their community, have basically been resigned to a life
Speaker 1: of hiding for their own safety. This Moss, how is
Speaker 1: this experience of being targeted by the former president and
Speaker 1: his allies affected your life? It's started my life upside down. UM.
Speaker 1: I no longer give out my business card, I don't
Speaker 1: transfer calls. UM. I don't want anyone knowing my name.
Speaker 1: I don't want to go anywhere with my mom because
Speaker 1: she might yell my name out over the grocery Hollar's
Speaker 1: the thing. I don't go to the grocery store at all.
Speaker 1: I haven't been anywhere um at all. Let's say a
Speaker 1: quick break at her back. Now, this detail didn't come
Speaker 1: up in the hearing at all, but I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk about it because I think it adds some important,
Speaker 1: if not totally what the fun context. In addition to
Speaker 1: the mixed bag of Trump cronies who you've probably heard about,
Speaker 1: Ruby and Shay were also being harassed and threatened by
Speaker 1: a woman named Trevanni Cooty. Trevanni was formally a publicist
Speaker 1: for the R and B singer slash convicted sex criminal
Speaker 1: r Kelly. So yeah, it sure seems like she really
Speaker 1: knows how to pick men to associate herself with. Trevanni
Speaker 1: claims to have had some kind of association with rapper
Speaker 1: Kanye West, who you may recall, ran for president himself
Speaker 1: alongside Trump and before becoming a vocal Trump supporter. According
Speaker 1: to NBC News, a biography of Trevanni posted on the
Speaker 1: website of the Women's Global Initiative, a business networking conference,
Speaker 1: identified her as a member of the Quote You Black
Speaker 1: Leadership Council under President Donald Trump and that same biography
Speaker 1: noted that in September, she quote was secured as a
Speaker 1: publicist to Kanye West and now serves as West's director
Speaker 1: of operations. Now I should also say that Kanye West's
Speaker 1: camp says that Trevanni was not associated with them. Here's
Speaker 1: a statement they released. Trevanni Coodie was not associated with
Speaker 1: Kanye West or any of his enterprises at the time
Speaker 1: of the facts that are reported in these articles, or
Speaker 1: since these facts occurred in any event. When Trevanni showed
Speaker 1: up that Shay and Ruby's door, the women understandably were
Speaker 1: pretty freaked out, and they called police to be present
Speaker 1: for the conversation. Trevanni told them that she was visiting
Speaker 1: at the direction of a quote high profile individual who
Speaker 1: warned that if the women did not confess to voter
Speaker 1: fraud allegations, they would be arrested after forty eight hours.
Speaker 1: So if that's not enough, this is where it gets
Speaker 1: really weird. According to Rolling Stone, the police body camp
Speaker 1: footage of the conversation showed Trevanni telling the women quote,
Speaker 1: I cannot tell you specifically what will take place. I
Speaker 1: just know that it will disrupt your freedom and the
Speaker 1: freedom of one or more of your family members. You
Speaker 1: are a loose end for a party that needs to
Speaker 1: tidy up. Kuti then put a man called Harrison Ford
Speaker 1: on speakerphone, who said that he could offer the women protection.
Speaker 1: You're probably wondering, is it that Harrison Ford from Indiana
Speaker 1: Jones and Star Wars. I was thinking the same thing. No,
Speaker 1: it is not. But according to the body cam audio,
Speaker 1: the man told the women, if she confessed to voter fraud,
Speaker 1: he would offer her legal protection, but if she declined,
Speaker 1: she would go to jail. So Ruby and Shay obviously
Speaker 1: did not believe this woman, but later because of the
Speaker 1: web of lies that the Trump machine spread about them,
Speaker 1: Trump supporters did show up to their home. Back to
Speaker 1: Ruby's testimony, around the week of January six, the FBI
Speaker 1: informed me that I needed to leave my home for safety.
Speaker 1: Um and I me my whole for safety around that time.
Speaker 1: So they had to flee their home for their own safety,
Speaker 1: which is bad enough, But here's where it gets even scarier.
Speaker 1: Trump supporters actually tried to break into Shade's grandmother's home
Speaker 1: to make a quote citizens arrest. I received a call
Speaker 1: from my grandmother. It's woman is my everything. I've never
Speaker 1: even heard her or seeing her cry ever in my life,
Speaker 1: and um, she called me screaming at the top of
Speaker 1: her laws like Shane, shame, Oh my god, Shane just
Speaker 1: freaking me out, saying that, um, there are people at
Speaker 1: her home and they, um, you know, they knocked on
Speaker 1: the door, and of course she opened it and seeing
Speaker 1: who was there, who it was, and they just started
Speaker 1: pushing their way through, claiming that they were coming in
Speaker 1: to make a citizen's risk. They needed to find me
Speaker 1: and my mom. They knew there, um, and she was
Speaker 1: just screaming and didn't know what to do. And I
Speaker 1: wasn't there, so you know, I just felt so helpless
Speaker 1: and so horrible for her. I honestly cannot even imagine
Speaker 1: how terrifying it must have been to have an angry,
Speaker 1: potentially armed mob of Trump supporters show up at your
Speaker 1: elderly grandmother's home and try to force their way in.
Speaker 1: All of this because Trump and his allies repeatedly lied
Speaker 1: and his lives were fueled by hatred and distrust of
Speaker 1: black women. Now people are calling Ruby and Shay heroes.
Speaker 1: You know, they served their community during a pandemic, and
Speaker 1: the president put their lives at risk because of it.
Speaker 1: And even in testifying and speaking up about what they experienced,
Speaker 1: they're sure to be an even more risk. So what
Speaker 1: they did is indeed heroic. But here's the thing. Black
Speaker 1: women should have to be put in such great danger
Speaker 1: for a country that is weaponized against them. She says
Speaker 1: that every single election worker that she worked with at
Speaker 1: the polling center in Georgia has now quit, And honestly,
Speaker 1: I don't blame them who would want to open themselves
Speaker 1: up to these kinds of harassment and attacks for just
Speaker 1: trying to serve the public and do their jobs. Ruby
Speaker 1: and Shay have sued the right wing website The Gateway
Speaker 1: Pundit and its owners for defamation for publishing stories that
Speaker 1: quote instigated a deluge of harassment, intimidation, and threats and
Speaker 1: force them to change their phone numbers, delete their online accounts,
Speaker 1: and fear for their physical safety. And they also settled
Speaker 1: a suit with one American news network. And honestly, I
Speaker 1: hope they get every last dime of these people's money,
Speaker 1: but no amount of money can make right what happened
Speaker 1: to them. I think Lady Ruby really puts it best.
Speaker 1: There is nowhere I feel safe nowhere. Do you know
Speaker 1: how it feels to him, the President of the United States,
Speaker 1: to target you, the President of the United States, it's
Speaker 1: supposed to represent every American, not to target one, but
Speaker 1: he targeted me. Lady Rudy, a small business owner, a mother,
Speaker 1: a proud American citizen who stand up to help Fulton
Speaker 1: County running the election in the middle of the pandemic.
Speaker 1: If you're looking for ways to support the show, check
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Speaker 1: Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or
Speaker 1: just want to say hi, you can be just at
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Speaker 1: transcripts for today's episode at tangdi dot com. There Are
Speaker 1: No Girls on the Internet was created by me Bridget Todd.
Speaker 1: It's a production of iHeart Radio and Boss Creative edited
Speaker 1: by Joey pat Jonathan Strickland as our executive producer. Terry
Speaker 1: Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Amata was
Speaker 1: our contributing producer. I'm your host, bridget Todd. If you
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